In an online description of his work of 13 years in Brazil, Mr. Heckenberger says that it "requires a commitment to holistic and deeply contextual research and interpretation" and "is not framed in opposition to 'positivist' viewpoints, whether evolutionist or functionalist."

It's not of chief importance here, but Fodor is no positivist, if by 'positivist' you are referring to the 'logical positivists' of the early 20th century, a la Popper, Carnap, etc., and their 'verificationist' program in philosophy.

Is he not saying something a little along these lines himself, when he writes that once a science enters the "positivist" stage "there is no longer any question of classifying information about the world in a manner consonant with the nature of things"?

Like the Royal Society, of which a large and most influential proportion of the first Freemasons were members [36] Masonry professes the empiric or "positivist" geometrical method of reason and deduction in the investigation of truth.